


Secret

by NatTalks



Series: Secret [1]
Category: Little Mix (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Police, Canon Lesbian Character, Crime Fighting, Crimes & Criminals, F/F, LGBTQ Character, Lesbian Character, POV Lesbian Character, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 10:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6149957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NatTalks/pseuds/NatTalks





	Secret

The cold London wind was brushing through Jade’s face, making her skin freezing cold as she tried to cross the road. She buried her face as deep as possible in her dark blue scarf, and held on tightly to her boiling cup of coffee, trying to take in as much of its warmness as possible.  

Catching a break in between the flow of the traffic, she crosses in a rush, rolling her eyes as her phone rings for the first time already at 7:48AM. Entering safely in the sidewalk, she takes out her phone to see “Blonde Girl Work” is the one getting on the way of what would have been a peaceful walk to the office. Well, at least as peaceful as morning London can be.

“Thirlwall speaking” she picks up.

“Hey… I… er… It’s me…” The insecure voice speaks on the other side.

“I know who it is. Now please go on” she says taking a first sip on her coffee, slightly conscious about her early bad mood.

“OK… Sorry… Erm, we have a case. I arrived early to organize some files and it was already sitting on the desk. I thought I’d let you know before you walked all the way here”

“Hm…” Jade says, a little bit surprised “OK. What you suggest we do?”

“Well, you could tell me where you are, and I pick you up. We go straight to the scene.” The other girl says, voice sounding a lot more firm than before.

“Sure. I’ll text you my location. Don’t take too long – it’s freezing” she says, trying to locate something she can sit on while she waits.

“I’d hate for you to freeze to death! Er… I’m coming” The girl says, losing her grip altogether, as though she said something she regretted.

Jade turns off her phone, a little bit intrigued. She found it strange that the girl, hired barely a week ago, would do that. But then again, it’s a lot easier to get along with people that are friendly, so she doesn’t give it a second thought.

Minutes later the blonde girl stops the car (a yellow 2002 Clio) in front of a bus stop, opening the door for Jade to come in quickly. She does, throwing her now empty coffee cup in a nearby trashcan with quite impressive aim.

“Morning,” she distractedly directs at the girl, while putting on her seatbelt.

“Morning, Ms Thirlwall. Nice throw you had there.” The girl observes, full smile on, already pulling the car out into the traffic again.

“Er… Thanks…” She says back, surprised with the quite… unprofessional statement. “Where are the case files? And, where exactly are we heading to?” She questions, going back to the comfortable and familiar work subjects.

“In the back seat. It’s a house in suburban London.” The blonde replies, car falling into silence as Jade focus on the files.

Or tries at least. It is very early in the morning and it’s hard to think about anything but the warm bed she left behind at her loft. Her eyes glance at the words, trying to put them together and take some sense out of it. Apparently it’s a ‘suicide-or-murder-?’ type of case, and Jade let’s out an excited breath. She likes these ones.

The pattern is that they should examine the scene where everything happened and interview suspects. That’s OK. She doesn’t need much further inspection into the file to do that. She goes through some pictures and names to identify everyone, and throws everything back into the backseat.

Jade lowers the car window, as to take in some fresh, cold air. She needs to fully wake up immediately or her work might get seriously impaired. As the air circles around the car, Jade takes a hint of flowery scent, coming from the blonde girl beside her. Lily, maybe? Yes, for sure. It’s delicate and soft, matching her figure perfectly. But the brown haired girl also takes a hint of something else… more seductive, intense. The fragrance is a fascinating mix of a prude, pure, innocent Sunday afternoon in the park, and hot, sexy scent of a strip club on a Friday night.

She knew at least the first part was fit.

“Isn’t Stella McCartney a little too pricey?” Jade let’s out with a questioning look.

“What? Stella…You mean, my perfume?” The blonde says glancing to the street and back at her various times, a smile finding its way through her lips.

“I’m right, then” smirk on her face as she feels quite proud of herself.

“Yes! It was, er… a gift, from an ex… partner,” the girl says, expression turning sad and confused for just a second before she puts on her usual smiley face.

“Oh… Sorry to bring it up.”

“It’s fine, really. How did you know?”

“Well, I know my fragrances.” She says, smirk intensifying. “I just don’t catch the… more powerful scent on the background” she rubs her index finger in her thumb, while trying once more to identify what it is.

“Oh, that would be my moisturizer. Sorry it gave you a hard time,” the blonde says with a soft giggle.

“No problem… Er…” Jade starts, immediately regretting her decision.

“Perrie. Perrie Edwards,” the blonde reminds the other, catching her confusion.

“Right. Perrie. I’m so sorry,” she says, although the other doesn’t seem offended.

Perrie simply smiles at her, and turns her eyes back to the road. Downtown London is far away now, and the city seems to get calmer as they go on. The GPS emits a few directions here and there, as it seems they are pretty close to their destination.

Despite being the one in charge, Jade does feel bad. She isn’t bad at remembering names (it’s part of her job, after all) but the Edwards girl didn’t catch her at a very good moment. Losing her former partner was quite a hard experience for Jade. Leigh-Anne had been her best friend since she first moved to London, and having her leave in such short notice was quite a punch in the stomach. She felt lonelier than ever.

The last week had been spent in a mixture of denial, too much black coffee and mourning over the loss of her former partner in crime. Well, technically partner in solving crimes.

In the middle of Jade’s disappointment, Perrie had been accidently caught up, having to face a lot of her ignoring, unwilling boss Thirlwall. But she decided to begin this week with a new approach. It does nothing to refuse the poor girl a chance. They were from the same hometown after all, so there must be something they can bond over. Even if Jade’s guts are still reluctant to do so.

“We are here,” Perrie offers, parking the car at the nearly empty street, blue eyes looking up to a loft in the second floor of an old building. The two girls walk out.

“One could guess,” Jade replies, looking at the blood spilled on the sidewalk with a hint of disgust on her face. The entire street is quiet and peaceful, quite like it’s home for all the peace and quiet in the whole of London. Or so it would be if it wasn’t for the shouts coming from right above them.

The sound is muffled and hard to identify, but it for sure comes from a woman. A mid aged woman Jade would risk.

They walk through the open door and climb up the stairs, Jade always leading. She turns the handle and pushes the door of the apartment open, finding a crying, chubby, fifty-something year old ginger woman hysterically screaming at a tall, slightly dark skinned police officer, while his partner sits in the arm of a sofa, head down.

Jade can’t help but to think of a mother going off at her two little children and has to suppress a laughter.

“MY DAUGHTER HAS JUST BEEN MURDERED. DEAD. AND YOU THINK I COULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT? NO RESPECT THESE DAYS, NO RESPECT,” the lady shouts, and it is almost unnerving, wasn’t it for the desperate tears running down her reddish face.

Jade makes a mental note to exclude her from the suspect list.

“Excuse me, please, I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m detective Thirlwall, and this is my… apprentice, per say, Ms Edwards. We were sent for the investigation.” Jade says as she shows her badge and nods professionally at everyone in the room. Perrie does the same, showing more seriousness than Jade was expecting.

“Oh, great. Another batch of idiots to accuse me of murdering my own daughter!” The lady says directly staring at the officer standing in front of her.

The police man lets out a long, frustrated sigh. “I’m officer Goldman. This is my partner, officer Callavan.” He says as the partner, an equally tall, bronze skinned man rises from the arm of the sofa, casually resting a hand on his belt. “Let’s get to it, shall we.” 

“Of course. I believe it happened right here, right?” Jade questions, walking through the living room, staring down at a window. It was one of the pictures attached to the file.

“That’s where the body was disposed. We aren’t sure exactly what, or where it happened yet. There’s suspiciously little blood where the body was found. Surely you are aware of the details.” Said officer Callavan.

“Yeah, yeah… for sure,” Jade replied, masking partially the fact that she failed to read most of the case file. “Officer Goldman, may I talk to you for a second? Edwards, you can inspect the other rooms in the house” Jade commanded. Perrie nodded and left the room into a corridor, excusing herself to the ginger haired Mrs Neman.

“Yes, detective Thirlwall?” Said officer Goldman, approaching her as the other officer tried to calm down a sobbing Mrs Neman.

“What was going when I got here?” Jade said in a quite censuring tone, lowering her voice.

“Well, I… started asking a few questions about the event… She ended up getting a tad offended at some of the protocol inquiries.”

“Indeed…You should have waited for us. The relatives of the victims must be handled carefully, you know… the way a detective is trained to do,” she implied, putting more emphasis on the word ‘detective’.

“I guarantee it won’t happen again,” said the officer in a sarcastic tone.

“Perfect,” the girl smiled briefly, “so, what did you find out then?”

“Nothing much, just what was already known. The girl was found on the sidewalk, with a bullet through her head. There was blood on the carpet and near the window. The gun was found over there,” he pointed at a marked spot on the ground. “No one found her until about 30 minutes after the incident”

“That’s what the autopsy showed right?”

“Yes detective.”

“Brilliant. Thank you officer.” Jade said walking out, pensive.

A few ideas were already popping in her mind. The neighbourhood was a quiet one, yes, but it is very unlikely no one would see a girl dead in the sidewalk for half an hour. The gun was found in the very carpet they stood on right now, but there was very few blood on the

entire room. Jade risked the possibility of suicide from her mind right away. They were dealing with a murder.

Jade walked into the dead girl’s room, to find a very busy Perrie going through loads of paper sheets and notebooks. There were plenty of drawings and various notes. Perrie was more specifically interested in what seemed to be the Neman girl’s former journal.

“Found anything interesting?” asked Jade.

“Quite. She didn’t write so often, but as it seems the girl had been depressed for a long time. There are horrible things here. Some quite disturbing.”

While the blonde talks, Jade is examining the girl’s drawings. They are all quite abstract and confusing, but indeed very beautiful. Some, such as the journal passages, are disturbing, with bloody figures, distorted images and death scenes.

“We’re taking all of this to the office,” Jade says firmly.

“Really? It was probably just suicide wasn’t it?” Perrie looks up from the chair into Jade.

“You still have a lot to learn girl. Get packing.” Jade says looking deeply into those innocent light blue eyes. Her tone might have been rude, but the girl has to get used to it. Field work isn’t for softies.

The brown haired girl turns away, back into the corridor and checks into the other rooms of the house. It isn’t a big place but it was sure full of evidences. After looking around the place, she makes some mental notes and gets a few more stuff to take to the office: letters from Mrs Neman’s room, samples from the sink in the bathroom and in the kitchen, samples of blood from the carpet and the window, tickets she found in the trashcan.

Having collected everything she needed and shoved them into her coat’s inside pockets, Jade heads back to the lounge, finding a much calmer Mrs Neman, the two officers, and Perrie with loads of evidence packages in hand.

“Right. We are all done here for the moment.” Jade states. “Don’t worry Mrs Neman, we will be contacting you with news from the case. May I ask where the girl’s brother is?”

“The boy spent the night in jail. I thought you knew.”

“What?! You mean, the boy is basically at my office?”

“Yes… The incident happened yesterday at nearly 8PM, as you know. He misbehaved while talking to the officers and had to be taken in for the night.”

“Of course he did…” Jade sighs and knows the Neman lady said something but she can’t quite get herself to pay attention to it. “Right. We need to go immediately. Thanks for your help.” She says drily to no one in particular and storms out of the room, quickly going downstairs, thoughts getting blurred as she walks from side to side in the sidewalk, examining the stain of blood on the floor.

Perrie arrives with some difficulty, opening the backdoor and carefully placing the evidences there.

“Don’t get in. I need some coffee,” Jade says, still moving around.

“You just had some coffee now!” Perrie claims, confused.

“What time is it?”

“8:56.”

“It’s been more than an hour! Let’s go,” Jade walks quickly, ignoring Perrie’s confusion completely.

The blonde follows her.

“OK, where are we going?”

“No idea. But there’s gotta be a coffee shop somewhere. This is still London.”

There’s no response, as Perrie struggles to catch up with her pace.

Jade’s mind races. No, it can’t have been suicide. Shooting yourself in the head and falling off a window is not very probable, especially when there’s nearly no blood around, or on her hands. You can’t quite shoot yourself in the head with such precision not to splash it everywhere. In fact the girl probably didn’t even die there. The question now is who killed her. And why.  

The both of them walk in silence, Perrie shaking from the cold, but Jade too occupied in her thoughts to feel it. They turn here and there, finally finding a small bakery after about five minutes. Jade looks very pleased.

“Black coffee please, one sugar,” Jade orders, just as she enters the shop.

“Er… Coffee with milk and two sugars please,” Perrie instructs , following the other as she sits in a table.

The old white lady, who was before reading a magazine on the counter, turns away without a word and puts on a harsh expression on her face. Jade searches in her inside pockets, finally taking out the tickets she found, moments later. She gazes at them curiously, as if she could find a confession to the crime written all over there.

“See,” she says with a large smile and a fixed look, banging her fist on the table. “We might have already found the first mistake in our story.”

“What? Can I see?” Perrie says, eyes jumping from their sockets in surprise.

“Sure. Tell me what you get from it.” Jade passes the tickets to the other girl. “Thank you,” she says to the frog looking woman who has come back with their coffees.

“Ok, these are from the brother right? Took the bus at 6:07PM… He works at this place called Capital Carboot Sale, in downtown London… From there to here, that’s about 50 minutes… But there’s also this ticket from a Golden Fish place… Where is it?”

“You’re sitting inside it right now.”

“This café?! So you knew all along?”

“I had to find it. It might be crucial. How long did we take to get here?”

“About 5 minutes.”

“Add that to the distance of the nearest bus stop.”

“That’s probably eleven, twelve minutes…”

“Which adding to the total takes us to…”

“Around 7:15PM.”

“When the body was found by the mother at around 8PM, she had been dead for half an hour. So either Mr Neman spent over 45 minutes in this bakery before going home, or there’s something he isn’t telling us.” Jade concludes, laying back on her chair and taking a good sip of her coffee.

“Good grief. You solved a case and it’s not even brunch yet,” Perrie offers with a smile, picking up and blowing into her milked coffee.

“That’s kind of you, but I didn’t solve anything. We have a little hint, that’s all. There’s still a lot of carving to do,” Jade replies with a little smile. “He could be doing something else, but… in this job, you will find they hardly ever are.”

They both fall silent once again, Jade analyzing the next steps as Perrie gazes at her, eyes sparkling with fascination. She observes the hair; long brown waves framing her perfectly shaped face, falling just above her chest. Observes her dark coat over the cream colored shirt, deep blue scarf hanging carelessly, hiding her pretty caramel skin. She isn’t wearing any makeup, and even though she looks perfectly good, the dark bags under her eyes scream just how tired she is. Perrie wonders if it has to do with all that coffee.

After a few minutes of coffee sipping and brainstorming, Jade speaks up again.

“Are you done? We should have a talk with the cashier lady.”

Perrie looks up from her phone. “Yeah, yeah, sure,” she says, taking a last long sip of her drink and tucking her phone back in her pocket before following Jade to the counter.

“Are the two of you done?” The old lady asks, not looking up from her crossword puzzle.

“Not quite,” Jade replies, “We would just like to ask a few things”

This time the lady looks up, expression going from boredom, to confusion, to surprise, as she glances at the badge Jade showed softly hanging in the inside of her vest, and back at the two young women.

“Sure, sure… I don’t know how I can help but…” The woman replies, this time looking more like a scared kitten than anything else.

“We just need to know if a man was here last night. Average height, shaved head, probably in work clothes. His name was Michael Neman.” Jade describes, briefly.

“Er…” The woman behind the counter closes her eyes, trying to remember, “I think… Yes, yes I remember him, he was here. Still wearing the name tag from work.”

Perrie observes the scene, but lets Jade lead, “Perfect. D’ya remember how long he stayed?”

“Well, he didn’t, basically. Just grabbed a cuppa and left,” the lady concludes.

Jade doesn’t answer for a moment, just inhales deeply. Her eyes flicker from side to side, as if joining the pieces of an invisible jigsaw puzzle.

“Great. Thank you so much for your help. Perrie, would you mind paying? I need some air.”

“Er… Sure, no problem,” Perrie replies, a bit confused.

“I’ll give you the money later, promise,” Jade says, already walking past the door into the cold morning.

                Perrie pays, a bit dazed by the all the rush, all the frenzy rhythm her morning was moving to. Her mind goes from the case and back to Jade all the time. But mainly, indeed, to Jade. This woman was so mysteriously  fascinating, and she was surprised by the fact no one seemed to notice it but  her. The confidence she had in what she did, how she didn’t seem to hesitate a single moment, and still managed to look somehow adorable, and delicate, and soft. The way she was so intelligent, professional, unapologetic, harsh sometimes even, but seemed to Perrie like a close friend, someone who wouldn’t cause her to feel intimidated or afraid, only… inspired. She looks up to Jade so much it is nerve racking having to work beside her.

The cold hits Perrie like a brick as she walks out the bakery. But something else also strikes her, something less familiar.

“Is this… are you smoking???” Perrie questioned, a little bit more emphatically than she intended to.

“I… Yeah… Why?” Jade said, a bit confused.

“Er… Nothing, you just… don’t seem like the type, that’s all,” Perrie replies, suddenly realizing Jade’s personal habits weren’t supposed to be her concern. Not when their relationship is all the more professional and it’s creepy for her to be preoccupied about her one week boss’ health. “I’m sorry”.

“It’s OK. We are partners now. We have to know these things about each other,” Jade replies, taking in some more smoke from her cigarette. “I have been trying to stop though”.

“Oh… I… That’s… good,” Perrie tries, embarrassed, “I hope you do it.”

Jade gives her an indecipherable look. Has a hint of mocking, but maybe something more meaningful as well. Perrie isn’t able to tell.

“Thank you.” She says at last. “Should we get going then?”


End file.
